Menu

Literary links

Having recently changed jobs, I happily have much more time to read so have decided to resume blogging here. My immediate reading plans include plenty of Chinese fiction and non-fiction in preparation for my trip there in October; the Miles Franklin shortlist and the next two volumes of Trollope’s Palliser novels, namely Phineas Finn and The Eustace Diamonds.

As I’m only halfway through Peter Hessler’s River town: two years on the Yangtze, I thought I’d share the best literary links I’ve found this week in the hope you find them as interesting as I do:

Haaretz has a fascinating article about the lives and work of authors whose work was banned and burnt by the Nazis.

Continuing with the theme of moral courage, Sheila O’Malley reviews Booker’s Place. I’ll be looking out for this documentary about African-American waiter Booker Wright, who simply told the truth about his life in the Jim Crow South and suffered for it.

Xujun Eberlein’s joint review of Mao’s Great Famine : The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962 and Tombstone in the Los Angeles Review of Books is a masterly look at two accounts of the Great Famine. Grim but essential reading.

The New York Timesexplains the US Justice Department vs. Apple, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster case and why it’s important.

Sticking with e-books, the Review of Australian Fiction is a new online venture enabling you to read a story from one established and one up-and-coming Aussie author a fortnight for a bargain price. I find this is a good way to expand my reading horizons and a lifesaver when, book finished, I need something to read on the train home. Geordie Williamson shares his thoughts on it here.

I’m also loving the Library of America’s free weekly short story. Some favourites: classic Dashiell Hammett; Bettye Rice Hughes’ tour of the South shortly after bus segregation is banned and Henry James’ account of visiting an English workhouse.

Welcome back! And way to come back with a bang, such a great list of links! I’m interested by the deal about reading one established author and one new author in a row. I recently heard about a publisher in South America somewhere (video linked on my blog in the past few weeks describing it) that has a compilation of new authors in a book that has disappearing ink, so you have to read the book within a certain amount of time before it disappears. That’s their way of trying to get new authors more attention and publicity.